The Weekender: Lock your mum in the kitchen, it’s party time! Welcome to the Weekender

You know, in the ancient Egyptian times they used to bury their loved ones with a bunch of objects they may need in the afterlife. There’s been another bout of this kind of thing going around recently, with funeral directors coming forward and reporting on weird requests they’ve had. In the UK it’s more chucking in their favourite lighter, a bottle of ketchup, or the remote. Over in the US things get way more obscure, and better! This Reddit thread has got all kinds of juicy, stories on it, such as "my friend who works at a funeral home got a request to play the “Soul Bossa Nova”, the Austin Powers theme song as they walked out". The Weekender has already submitted its funeral requests, unfortunately we can’t share them with you as they (literally) violate our style guide and put us into the legal equivalent of shark-infested waters.

Six articles you should have spied at through their bedroom window this week

Image by Alexis Nolla

A lovely interview with the creative director of the new Pitchfork Review

Three cheers for Channel 4’s hip-hip hooray for gay people in Russia!

The It’s Nice That Friday Mixtape

This is probably the first time we’ve had an actual pop star on It’s Nice That, how exciting! Her name’s Indiana and she’s from Nottingham, she had a show in trendy new bar Oslo in Hackney last night and she’s set to conquer the world with her lovely, 80s-inspired, synthy….music. We’re art and design journalists, okay? Anyway, anyone that picks Wicked Game by Chris Isaak is a friend of ours, so without further ado, here she is with a Friday mixtape to brighten up your afternoon. Turn it up!

Things

This week’s Things

Squash together some prints of illustrations for beer bottles, some pictures of greenery, photographs of Las Vegas in map form, a book of cool projects from outside of the nine to five, a Spanish magazine all about things that will make you happy and a bright yellow background and whaddya get? Things! You get Things!

This week has been especially colourful so be careful not to be blinded by the rainbow hues or you might miss the life-size plastic dolls that one man surrounds himself with. Weird.

Kasia Dolato: I’m So Green

Kasia Dolato: I’m So Green

Kasia Dolato: I’m So Green

Kasia Dolato: I’m So Green

Kasia Dolato: I’m So Green

Kasia Dolato’s new book I’m So Green puns on the idea of naivete and uses it instead to produce some excellent photographs of London’s luscious greenery. Palm trees, roses, ivy and bushes are all in there. It’s simple but funny, and the resulting images will have you longing for spring. Fo’ real.www.kasiadolato.com

Perdiz Magazine: Issue #3

Perdiz Magazine: Issue #3

Perdiz Magazine: Issue #3

Perdiz Magazine: Issue #3

Perdiz Magazine: Issue #3

I had the pleasure of meeting Querida studio in Barcelona at the weekend, the clever chaps who have designed all three issues of Perdiz magazine so far, and having them talk me through the third issue has increased my admiration for it tenfold. The whole publication based on the idea that “Happiness is Contagious”, and subjects covered within it include a man who lives with four plastic life-size dolls, an organisation that takes llamas into old people’s homes, www.perdizmagazine.com

This Is Not a Map: Las Vegas

“This is not a map but a photographic journey,” explains the Las Vegas edition of This Is Not a Map, but in actual fact it seems to be a combination of the two. It’s a nostalgic tribute to the tactility of maps as much as it is an innovative way to present a photographic publication, emphasising the notion of the journey that underpins a series. Neat!www.thisisnotamap.com

5-9: A Collection of Creativity From Outside the 9-5

5-9: A Collection of Creativity From Outside the 9-5

5-9: A Collection of Creativity From Outside the 9-5

5-9: A Collection of Creativity From Outside the 9-5

5-9: A Collection of Creativity From Outside the 9-5

Everybody knows that in the creative industry only 50% of most people’s creative output actually happens at work; between side projects, pub projects and nighttime projects there’s always a load of other stuff going on that the man doesn’t know anything about. Which explains why the West of England Design Forum chose to create 5-9, a book “showcasing the self-initiated creative work done by members of the design community in the West of England… Work done in their spare time without a brief, a client or a fee.” The resulting collection includes photography, design, home-brewing and animation, and makes for a very impressive read. www.wedesignforum.co.uk

Earlier this week it was National Hot Dog Day, next week is National Salad Week and apparently in America the whole of July is National Ice Cream Month. Known for having a balanced and nutritious diet the Weekender is taking part in all of these food-related celebrations with gusto. A garden salad has accompanied every mustard drenched hotdog and a classic fruit cocktail has sat atop each trendy pot of artisan gelato. But it’s time for the Weekender to undo its top button and let the belly of art and design flop over the denim waistband of the creative industries. Enjoy! – Money is a web of difficult decisions for graduates starting out in the creative industries. Should you work for free? If so, when and why? If you shouldn’t, why not? We spoke to seasoned professionals to find out the deal with unpaid jobs, and, if you do decide to take them, how you can make them work in your favour. Spanish artist Yolanda Dominguez is back with a new project this week, and she doesn’t show any sign of abandoning her quest to probe the more problematic areas of the fashion industry. This time around she asks eight-year-old children to describe what they see in the ad campaigns of leading fashion houses, and their responses – occasionally funny, largely disconcerting – are a shock to the system.
– Offbeat filmmaking collective CANADA is back with an absolute treasure this week. Ouch! That’s Big is a new short created as part of a new series for Vogue video, and it’s all French new-wave cinema, 60s science fiction and Gucci. Needless to say, it’s well worth a watch.

It’s small, it’s wearing a shawl, it’s ready for a brawl – welcome to the Weekender, our weekly supplement of all the best stuff we’ve come across this week. Ready to see you through the weekend like an over-zealous, elderly tour-guide.– Last week we launched the first in our series of features helping grads find their feet. This week philanthropic old us is back with more, chatting with some of our many friends in high places to ask if (or when) you might need to get an agent.

Every year Wimbledon brings out the competitive side in the Weekender. There’s no humble nodding when there’s a bad serve, or quiet screech into the sweat towel when a point is lost. It’s full on racket-wrangling, ball-bouncing, giant-grunting when the Weekender is on centre court. But if you’d rather have a mellower Wimbledon final this weekend grab a jug of pimms, fill your gob with strawberries and read a friendly rally between art and design.– We’re not ones to blow our own trumpets at INT Towers but when it comes to advice we’ve got friends in fairly lofty places, so obviously we jump on any opportunity to rack their brains for advice. In part one of four articles designed to help new graduates get off on the right foot, we spoke to a couple of them about their tips on putting together portfolios. Share the love!

“Scorchio!” is the word of the week for the Weekender. It’s been a joy to have the sun beaming down on us so perpetually, and to avoid wishing that heat away the Weekender is adopting a sensible summer regimen to get through it. This includes a daily dose of ice cream of your choice, the right to say “God it’s hot!” up to eight times a day and a uniform of loose-fitting bits of material that we can get away with calling “clothes.” If you want the same prescription as the Weekender read on ahead and come see us after – we’ll be melting in the park dreaming of paddling pools.– One-of-a-kind photographer Juno Calypso’s new exhibition opens at London’s Flowers Gallery this week. This time around she spent a solo evening at the Honeymoon Hotel in Pennsylvania in the company of her alter ego, Joyce. The very best yet.

If the Weekender was to create a soundtrack it wouldn’t have any of those cool jams the kids listen to these days. It would be filled with the songs and artists that remind us of a time when you had to ring someone’s house phone to talk to them. With bangerz from Craig David, Blazin’ Squad and Billie Piper, it would be like an old episode of Top of the Pops, and then we’d all go out for a Pizza Hut buffet. So while the Weekender drifts off into a carb-fuelled, cheese-laden food coma, have a little peek at what we’ve been seeing and reading this week.– Excellently crafted animation Coda was the most read article on It’s Nice That this week, and with a host of awards, a focus on life and mortality, and a beautiful soundtrack, it’s little surprise. If you haven’t watched it yet, do: it will be the wisest nine minutes you spend all week.

If the Weekender were to contribute to the “lonely hearts” column in a crumpled, thoroughly thumbed tabloid, it would probably read “fun-loving, outgoing, heavily bearded older guy, WLTM likeminded pals for weird GIF exchanges, bad jokes, all-you-can-drink Bloody Mary brunches and all that accompanies them.” If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you’re in the wrong place. Enjoy!– Oh M.I.A., audio-visual queen of our hearts, is there no wrong you can do? For the latest release from her new album Matangi, Maya teamed up with Gener8ion to film no fewer than 36,000 kids at China’s biggest fighting school performing a routine in staggering, faultless unison. Just try to look away.